


The Deeds That Define Us

by withlightning



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-21
Updated: 2011-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-21 14:57:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/226459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/withlightning/pseuds/withlightning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is vicious, this cycle they’re in. They keep rotating with each other, against each other, despite each other. Erik never wanted to tarnish Charles or his faith for humanity – but he isn’t going to apologise for the fact that he did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Deeds That Define Us

**1.**   


They start with the knowledge of a connection. 


 

 **2.**   


If Erik has dreamed of finding someone else like him, someone else with gifts, he has dreamed of finding a thread of acknowledgement in the back of his mind. Instead, he’s laying himself bare, he’s giving up everything he has and it’s not enough – it’s not enough and he’s drowning, he’s dying, and he’s not giving up—

And there is this man, blazing his way into Erik’s head, exploding in Erik’s every nerve, lighting Erik up and then soothing him down. The impact of the connection is devastating; it’s filling every void Erik never even knew he had, settling into his cells and in the place where his soul would be. He’s still gasping for breath, every instinct fighting for dominance, for the need to not let go— _You have to let it go, Erik_ —and there’s an arm around him, tugging, pulling, and he strains himself one last time, powers waned to the point of being useless, and the submarine is gone between an eye blink and another.




 

 **3.**   


When they surface, he pulls air into his lungs and it burns, it burns like the name, _Charles Xavier_ , burns in his mind – fire and thunder and blinding whiteness. 


 

 **4.**   


Wrapped up in a blanket with warm clothes that are not his, he sits on the hard cot of the tiny cabin. Charles sits in front of him, a steaming cup of tea between his hands. The man looks familiar to Erik, in a way he cannot describe. He knows for sure they have never met, but the sense gnawing on his insides tells him they’ve been aware of each other for as long as they’ve lived. The knowledge is both exhilarating and excruciating at the same time.


 

 **5.**   


“How are you feeling?” Charles asks, bright eyes gazing into his behind the rim of the cup. 


 

 **6.**   


Erik pulls the blanket closer. “You mean you don’t know?” He can still feel the lingering warmth of Charles’ mind mingling with his, spreading calmness, touching intimately like no other ever has. It should be disconcerting but instead it’s as close to _safety_ as Erik has ever known. 


 

 **7.**   


Charles keeps looking at him, lowering the cup. His soft mouth is pursed. “It is not in my nature to just fish for that information,” Charles says, and Erik lifts his eyebrow, shooting him a look, “or, alright, fine, yes it is – but I wouldn’t—“

“Why? Because you already infiltrated my mind once?”

“It was a necessity,” Charles huffs. “You would have drowned, Erik.”

“You are also very humble, aren’t you?” Erik asks, mirth playing on the corners of his lips, the disappointment and rage for needing to let Shaw escape dissipating slowly, leaving only wariness in its wake. “But then I suppose someone with your level of gift might have troubles different from the norm, wouldn’t you agree?”




 

 **8.**   


Charles hums, low in his throat and when he takes a sip of his tea, the line of his neck looks soft and vulnerable. Erik swallows. “To answer your query, I’m better now.” What he doesn’t say is, _because of you_. Instead he nods briefly and closes his eyes.


 

 **9.**   


He awakes by a hand gripping his shoulder and radiating warmth, by a gentle voice half-whispering, “We’ve arrived.” Opening his eyes he blinks against a collarbone only centimetres away and he suddenly wishes he’d be allowed to touch, to trace the hollow underneath the bone and explore the shapes hidden under the shirt. Charles’ hand tightens momentarily on his shoulder and then disappears as if burned. “We have a car waiting,” Charles says, voice oddly detached and he shies away when Erik lifts his head higher, stands up and faces the other way. 


 

 **10.**   


How he fell asleep is a mystery, but he doesn’t bring it up and neither does Charles. He can take a bit of mystery in his life.


 

 **11.**   


When Charles says he knows everything about him, he doesn’t think Charles is lying. That also doesn’t mean that Charles actually knows everything about him. How could he? Erik doesn’t even know everything about himself. 


 

 **12.**   


The reasons for him staying, in the end, with a briefcase filled with vital information making his fingers itch and the blood roar in his veins with vengeance, aren’t because he needs friends, needs anyone in the world more than the thirst of giving Shaw what he deserves – it’s because he finds himself not _wanting_ to do it alone. The realisation hits him in the crack of the dawn, between one step and another, hours away from where he left. . As he turns back, he feels as if he’s making the most important decision of his life. The decision feels important enough for him to not explore it any further, to not delve into the real reasons behind the ones he’s willing to admit.


 

 **13.**   


Then come the images. Images in Erik’s head, flashing, lingering, imprinting his mind and making his chest tighten painfully. Images that seem to fill his headspace in the most inconvenient times, such as training with the youngsters or when he’s trying to finally catch some sleep that never seems to come, never seems to satisfy his tired body. The images are of Charles; of Charles and him, of him doing things to Charles, rendering Charles speechless under his hand and mouth and thoughts; of Charles holding him down, making him surrender in ways he never dreamed of; of them both, in the throes of something carnal, something vicious and fulfilling and desperate.

He knows it isn’t just him, knows he isn’t capable of manifesting such bright and burning images, knows he isn’t able to feel as if they’re true in the most untrue way, tangible as if they happened. He knows it isn’t just him, just like Charles knows it isn’t just him, either.




 

 **14.**   


How they take the step from tangled thoughts into action, into real touch and biting kisses and reverent hands, into skin on skin, he isn’t sure. In the end, it doesn’t even matter. 


 

 **15.**   


He lets himself be lost in the feverish, frantic way Charles worships all of his being, the way Charles touches him as if he knows what makes him bite his lip, wanting to shout under the overwhelming pleasure tingling in all the right places. He lets himself be lost beneath Charles’ hands, above Charles’ body, in Charles’ bright bright eyes, never wavering from his.

Charles never enters his mind, not once, but he projects – oh how he projects, and Erik braces himself against the bed, grips the sheets until his arms ache because the way he makes Charles _feel_ ; inside him, relentless and hard and greedy, and the way he feels, inside Charles; hot and tight and something worth fighting for, and he knows, suddenly, with staggering clarity, that Charles isn’t wrong, that they were meant to be in a way neither of them can even begin to fathom.




 

 **16.**   


And as he comes and as Charles comes, the loop inside his head feeding itself, spinning and spinning with sparkles and strangled breaths, he knows they weren’t meant to last, either.


 

 **17.**   


Later, Erik thinks, it was written in the stars. One just needed to look closer, deeper and see the inevitable outcome. He’s already seen it. Charles has chosen not to, and no matter how enraged it makes Erik, the naivete and belief for all the goodness left in the world Charles harbours, he cannot begrudge Charles for choosing to be the better man. In another life, with another past and another future, Erik might have chosen differently as well.


 

 **18.**   


The lie, when it comes out of his mouth in the moment of truth, is easier than anything else he’s ever said in his life. Charles screams in his mind, begs and begs and it pains him, deep inside in a way that nothing has before. But he hasn’t come this far only to give up, hasn’t fought his way to this precious moment to let everything go.

He says, “I’m sorry, Charles, but I don’t trust you,” and he hopes Charles doesn’t hear it under his own screaming, doesn’t hear the blatant lie as the metal settles alien and familiar around his head, cutting Charles’ desperation from his mind. He hopes Charles doesn’t hear it because it’s as far away from the truth as it can be. It isn’t Charles he doesn’t trust.

He doesn’t trust himself with Charles.




 

 **19.**   


The image of Charles bruising and vicious, pliant and affectionate and gentle, lavishing his skin with feather-light kisses, blue eyes dancing with mirth and mischief, vanishes between one heartbeat and another. 


 

 **20.**   


Erik’s only regret in his life has always been the fact that he wasn’t able to save his mother. Now that Shaw is frozen in front of him and the coin is heavy in his pocket, the blood in his veins singing the sweet song of revenge, he is just about to have another in the form of Charles-shaped hole in his chest.


 

 **21.**   


He learns quickly that even if the helmet, thick and restricting, shields his mind from Charles, it cannot subdue Charles’ mind. He’s both disappointed and relieved.


 

 **22.**   


When he’s thousands miles away in a blink of an eye, the lingering pain-laced understanding in his mind weakens and finds itself a new home in his chest, mingling with all the anger and rage he’s been holding onto all his life. The quick burst of something akin to worry is sharp inside his head and for a reason he cannot comprehend, his heart skips a beat, twists and turns as he thinks, _she’ll be fine_. 


 

 **23.**   


Charles, of course, cannot hear him.


 

 **24.**   


Erik never asked for acceptance or affection. Yet, for some unnamed reason, Charles gave him acceptance, gave him affection and for that he’ll always be grateful of. Charles has helped him find his way to something he was always meant to be – and if he had been a different person, he would have given something back to Charles, something similar, fundamentally changing. The only thing he was capable of giving was his honesty.


 

 **25.**   


Mystique turns her head to look at him and he slowly lets go of her hand. Yellow eyes regard him with interest and he drops his gaze. She’s every bit as beautiful as he has said before, gorgeous in her true form – but she isn’t Charles. No one could be as naïve and generous and smart and pure and as pathetically _wrong_ as Charles is.

Erik thinks, perhaps Charles isn’t, not anymore.




 

 **26.**   


It is vicious, this cycle they’re in. They keep rotating with each other, against each other, despite each other. Erik never wanted to tarnish Charles or his faith for humanity – but he isn’t going to apologise for the fact that he did. 


 

 **27.**   


Sometimes, only sometimes, Erik wonders what he is doing. The power in his fingertips, racing through his bones, is something unfathomable, something stark and angry. Where he does what he sees is necessary, he knows Charles will try to make amends. 


 

 **28.**   


They are the dark and bright side of the same entity; with different goals, different lives, different methods to work – they’re still the same, like they’ve always been.


 

 **29.**   


He fills the longing with rage, seeks the serenity that can never be. Peace was never an option but sometimes Erik wishes it might have been.

And sometimes, sometimes he thinks he would have taken peace instead of the constant war, constant death and revenge and the web of lies in all their brutal truth, he thinks he would have taken the peace that is now out of his reach.




 

 **30.**   


“Erik. Come back to us.”

“Come back to you, you mean.”

 _Yes._




 

 **31.**   


“No.”


 

 **32.**   


Erik thinks about visiting Charles from time to time. He knows Mystique keeps in touch with Charles, knows she disappears bi-monthly for few days, taking Azazel’s hand and they both zap out of existence only for Azazel to appear seconds later alone. He never asks her, though; it’s not his right to ask, so he doesn’t. 


 

 **33.**   


He swears he can feel Charles sometimes stronger, more omnipotent, and he realises, _Cerebro_. It’s the only explanation; there is another Cerebro, built only for Charles, Charles who is ridden with fatigue and sadness and the will to continue, to seek for a better tomorrow, the essence of Charles’ mind curling around his helmet, finding its way in without getting anything in return. Charles, possibly, doesn’t even know Erik knows. The knowledge bothers Erik in a pestilent way, clouds his thoughts and niggles at his body.


 

 **34.**   


Then he saves Charles’ life.


 

 **35.**   


He saves it once, twice, five times – saves it so many times he loses the count. He fights against humanity, fights against his own kind, fights against himself, against his beliefs, because if Charles would cease to exist, what would be the point of anything? They were meant to be, even if they weren’t meant to last.


 

 **36.**   


He never regrets it, though. He never could.


 

 **37.**   


On the night before the end of the world, Erik finds himself in a familiar place. He knows the world will end in fire, bright and burning, like the name _Charles Xavier_ burns inside him. The world is ending tomorrow and there is no other place he would rather be.


 

 **38.**   


Standing in the dark and quiet room, the cold light of the moon creates a contrast from what cannot be seen. The décor is still as Victorian as he remembered, plush velvet paired with sturdy wood and the paintings hanging from the walls worth millions, making Erik sure of the fact that he doesn’t belong. As if he could have ever forgotten.

The only thing that has his undivided attention is the shape on the bed – Charles, sleeping. Erik steps closer, quietly. The slope of Charles’ neck is still as inviting as ever, the pale, smooth skin making him want to reach out. He lost that privilege along with so many others under the burning sun of an island, one lifetime ago filled with regrets and revenge, the want to change the future, the history, boiling in his blood stronger than the want to stay.

He takes off his helmet, lets it fall soundlessly to the carpet. He finds himself lighter, finds it easier to carry his weight. Wondering whether Charles can sense him there, on the edge of his bed, hand hovering over the thinning, dark hair that’s losing its gloss, he takes the step that he wants.

“It takes the end of the world for you to come back,” Charles says quietly, lifting his head.

Erik inhales, his mind filling with calmness and trust he doesn’t deserve. He wants to fight it, rebel against it. He doesn’t. “I’m not back,” he says, his fingers landing gently to stroke the strands next to his hand.




 

 **39.**   


Charles hums, closes his eyes. “Yes. For how could you be back when you never really left in the first place?”


 

 **40.**   


“Is that how you really see me?” Charles’ hair is soft, like the rest of him.

“I most certainly don’t see you like you see yourself,” he says fondly, as if all the miles between them have been erased, just like that. As if Erik has redeemed himself, as if there’s still hope left for him.




 

 **41.**   


The wheelchair gleams under the moonlight, ugly and cold. The metal of it is calling Erik to destroy, destroy, destroy.


 

 **42.**   


“I won’t say I’m sorry,” he says. His voice is oddly quiet. He _is_ sorry. Charles turns his head into Erik’s touch, the pads of his fingers gliding on Charles’ temple and cheek.

“I know,” Charles replies.

One sleep-warm hand appears from under the blanket, landing on his thigh, just resting. The gesture is familiar and something breaks in Erik’s chest, hot and painful, and he swallows.




 

 **43.**   


“Come to bed.”


 

 **44.**   


The world, of course, doesn’t end the day after. Because together, together they can do unspeakable, glorious, _miraculous_ things; they can save and kill, create and destroy, erase and rebuild. 


 

 **45.**   


Together, they continue with the knowledge of a connection, of tomorrow.



End file.
